New Hunger Strike in California Segregation

I’m writing to enlighten you of the new developments here within this oppressed segregated unit [Corcoran Ad-Seg]. For many years we have been denied our constitutional rights: our appeals process is wrongfully exercised, our appeals being lost or trashed or never making it to the appeals coordinators office. Our time constraints are being violated and surpass the time limitations they impose. But if we pass, even by a day, this administration gets very legalistic and denies our appeals on the sole basis of “time constraints.”

By court order, we are allowed to possess TVs or radios, but this unit is depriving us of that right, telling us that due to “budget cuts” we cannot get our appliances. This doesn’t make any sense at all, because there are so many other activities that are taking place and money being wasted on unnecessary things, but yet they claim “budget cuts.”

The health care in this unit is poor, we lack the basic necessities and it takes up to two months to see the doctor and when we see him/her we get denied the rightful care. They continue to defy the court’s order!

We are living under extreme conditions. It is real cold over here and yet they have the AC blowing. Our cells are super cold. We have gotten at numerous officers and the sergeant of this unit but to no avail, our environment continues to be cold.

This is just the beginning of the many violations and the torture we must endure, especially psychological. I’ve been filing grievances upon grievances challenging our conditions, but they just say, “we’re working on it.”

The rest of the comrades and I are in protest. We have begun a hunger strike. December 28, 2011 was the beginning of this peaceful protest, and we will continue this struggle till our needs are met.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We just hit the two year anniversary of the beginning of a United Struggle from Within campaign in California demanding that prisoner grievances be addressed. It continues to be a popular campaign, though many recognize its inherent limits in a system that is not interested in our grievances. Z-Unit in High Desert did utilize the campaign to achieve some temporary victories in their conditions. But it is little surprise comrades have stepped it up a notch beyond the petitions we were circulating.

“We’re working on it” is the refrain the comrades in Pelican Bay have been getting in response to previous hunger strikes launched in the past year, while nothing has changed in the SHU.

While there is much to consider in strategizing and moving forward in the face of this repression, there is no doubt that conditions in California prisons continue to lead prisoners to make greater sacrifices in struggling for their common cause.